DESCRIPTION: Dr. Selitrennikoff proposes to develop a simple, rapid quantitative test for the presence of a water-soluble fungal-specific antigen as a diagnostic that will be useful for detecting both acute, life-threatening infections as well as subacute Candida overgrowths. This test exploits the observation that when Candida albicans yeast cells divide, soluble oligomers of (1,3) beta-glucan are released into the surrounding medium. They propose to use a monoclonal antibody that binds (1,3)beta-glucan as a key component in a simple, rapid dipstick antigen- capture fungal diagnostic.